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[Request] Internet Routers (aussie.zone)
submitted 3 days ago by 18107@aussie.zone to c/buyitforlife@slrpnk.net
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Request: I'm looking for something with high reliability rather than high speed. It needs to support 30+ devices.

Additional information: My house is about 30m (100ft) long, and the internet comes in by ethernet at one end of it. I'm happy to use a Wi-Fi extender if needed.

Context: I've been having issues with both my current and previous routers. Devices are randomly unable to communicate over the network for several seconds at a time. Both ethernet and Wi-Fi are affected.
I live in Australia, so even the slowest router should be more than fast enough.
I have a large number of automated devices that need to stay connected at all times - even 5 second network dropouts are difficult to deal with. Internet dropouts are handled gracefully.

Any suggestions are gratefully received.

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[-] agegamon@beehaw.org 1 points 22 hours ago

Huge shout out to Louis Rossmans's guide. wiki.futo.org

Taking the plunge into pfsense or opnsense is very much worth it if you are as done with home/consumer router BS as I am. I got committed after even my ubiquiti router began acting up even after being reset. I followed that guide and am now running pfsense and by far the happiest I have ever been with a "home router."

I am by no means an expert at tech stuff, i have basic working knolwedge which is plenty if following a guide like this one. It's intimidating at first but definitely doable!

I didn't have a spare PC floating around and didn't have time to build one out so I bought a used Intel n5105 based mini-pc with dual gig ethernet ports. Its less modular than I'd like, but it's apparently easy to port a saved config over to a new machine. I was a little worried about performance before I got it, but its plenty fast. More than enough for my network with 30+ devices and it hosts OpenVPN for my phone when not home.

I recommend hardwiring as much as possible, or at least hardwiring to wireless APs and not using crappy WiFi repeaters. I picked up some used ubiquiti APs a while back that are still working well and are very reliable.

this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2025
39 points (95.3% liked)

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